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Egypt's Islamist president proclaimed the country's newly adopted constitution as the dawning of a "new republic" in a television address Wednesday, calling on the opposition to join a dialogue with him after a month of violent turmoil and focus on repairing a damaged economy.
Yeah, a new republic. . . a new Islamist republic. The totalitarian, and barbaric, drive for a new caliphate is under way. From Arabia to Turkey to Egypt to Morocco, the new Ottoman Empire is falling into place.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has declared a 30-day state of emergency and a night-time curfew in three cities along the Suez Canal that have seen deadly clashes in recent days. In a televised address late on Sunday, Morsi said the emergency measures in Port Said, Ismailia and Suez would take effect on Monday from 9:00pm local time (19:00 GMT) to 6:00am (04:00 GMT), warning that more action would be taken to stem the latest eruption of violence across much of the country. "I have said I am against any emergency measures but I have said that if I must stop bloodshed and protect the people then I will act," Morsi said.
He also called for dialogue with top politicians starting on Monday to resolve the situation. Deadly clashes across the country between protesters and police have killed at least 48 people since Friday, when Egyptians commemorated the two-year anniversary of the revolution that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak. Seven people were shot dead and hundreds were injured in Port Said on Sunday during the funerals of at least 30 people killed during clashes in the city on the previous day. "Down, down Morsi, down down the regime that killed and tortured us!" people in Port Said chanted as the coffins of those killed on Saturday were carried through the streets.
In Port Said, Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh said military helicopters that had been overhead during the funeral could also be heard during Morsi's speech. "I dont see how these decisions will instil any confidence in the people," Rageh said, referring to the president's decision to impose a state of emergency. She said that immediate reaction in Port Said was one of mockery and scepticism with many asking why the three canal cities had been singled out. "The people [in Port Said] feel that there was a complete state of collapse especially after riots today, particularly with tear gas being fired into the funerals," she said. Several hundred people protested in Ismailia, Suez and Port Said after the announcement. Activists in the three cities vowed to defy the curfew in protest at the decision.
'An expected move'
The opposition National Salvation Front (NSF) demanded Morsi be prosecuted for killings and torture, as it urged Egyptians to stage peaceful protests. The Salvation Front completely sides with the people and its active forces calls to topple the authoritarian regime and the Muslim Brotherhoods control, it said in a statement. It said Morsi should be put on trial after an impartial investigation and ruled out dialogue with the presidency until the bloodletting stops and those responsible for it are held accountable.
However, in a possible sign of differences in a troubled coalition that comprises liberals and leftists, NSF members disagreed on the statements intent. We are calling for the downfall of the regime of tyranny, not the regime, NSF spokesman Khaled Dawoud said, explaining that it meant the abuse of citizens and torture and ignoring the demands of the opposition. However, another NSF member, Hussein Abdel Ghani, said: I think this statement can be read to mean only one thing, which is to topple Morsis government.
Sporadic clashes broke out overnight between protesters demanding the ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and security forces outside the presidential palace, witnesses said yesterday. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the confrontations, which followed violent clashes on Friday outside the presidential palace that left one person dead. Late on Saturday several hundred mostly young protesters again gathered outside the compound and threw stones and gasoline bombs at its walls, a reporter said.
One protester said they were there to pay homage to the young man killed on Friday, and they chanted Leave! and The people want the regime to fall! slogans used two years earlier to oust former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. In Fridays clashes, a 23-year-old was shot dead and 91 people were injured, a medic said, and the interior ministry said 15 of its men were wounded by birdshot. Security forces deployed outside the palace grounds fired tear gas late on Saturday when a group of protesters tried to storm one of the gates, the witnesses said, but Republican Guards inside the compound did not intervene. We no longer respond to provocation from certain protesters outside the palace, the commander of the guards, General Mohammed Ahmad Zaki, was quoted as saying by the state-run MENA news agency.
Meanwhile, the NSF called for the resignation of Egyptian Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim after a video showing a naked man being beaten by police went viral on the Internet. The beating was an inhumane spectacle ... no less ugly than the killings of martyrs, which is considered a continuation of the security forces programme of excessive force, the opposition bloc said. Ibrahim has ordered a probe to hold accountable those responsible and will resign if thats what the people want, his office said. The presidency also scrambled to contain fallout from the footage.
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Mohammed Morsi's defiant statement sets up a major confrontation between supporters of the president and Egyptians angry over what they see as his efforts to impose control by his Muslim Brotherhood as well as his failure to introduce reforms more than two years after the revolution that ousted his autocratic predecessor Hosni Mubarak. Writing Tuesday on his official Twitter account, Morsi said he "asserts his adherence to constitutional legitimacy and rejects any attempt to breach it and calls on the armed forces to withdraw their ultimatum and rejects any domestic or foreign dictates." He then went on Egyptian television to deliver a public address, vowing to protect democratic "legitimacy" with his life.
Morsi accused loyalists of his predecessor Hosni Mubarak of riding the current wave of protests to topple his regime. "There is no substitute for legitimacy," he said. The leaking of the military's so-called political road map appeared aimed at adding pressure on Morsi by showing the public and the international community that the military has a plan that does not involve a coup. Political violence was more widespread on Tuesday, with multiple clashes between the two camps in Cairo as well as in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and other cities. A march by Morsi supporters outside Cairo University came under fire from gunmen on nearby rooftops.
At least 10 people were killed in Cairo and more than 70 injured, according to hospital and security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Protesters also turned to a new target Tuesday, massing a giant crowd outside the Qasr el-Qobba presidential palace where Morsi has been working in recent days, in addition to filling wide avenues outside another palace, central Tahrir Square and main squares in cities nationwide.
Morsi's supporters increased their presence in the streets, after his Muslim Brotherhood and hard-line Islamist leaders called them out to defend the legitimacy of the country's first freely elected president. Tens of thousands held marches in Cairo and other cities. Clashes broke out around pro-Morsi marches in several parts of the capital and a string of cities to the north and south. Morsi opponents stormed Brotherhood offices in two towns. Gehad al-Haddad, a senior Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, told CBS News' Alex Ortiz the military's threat has changed the game. "I think it's a coup," al-Haddad said.
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Hamamou and some of her fellow journalists held demonstrations, issued petitions and pressed editors for the paper to break from state dictates and adopt independent, objective coverage. Change never came. First, the military rulers who took over after Mubarak tightly controlled the paper. Once Mohammed Morsi became president, his Muslim Brotherhood stepped in and pushed coverage their direction. "What happened was they just put in their people in Al-Ahram and other state institutions, and nobody tried to reform the institutions themselves," Hamamou said. "The saying goes if you are confused about who is ruling Egypt, just look at the headlines of Al-Ahram." Now Hamamou is dismayed to see the paper and other state media unquestionably embracing the military after its coup that ousted Morsi on July 3, following protests by millions around the country demanding his removal.
It's not only state media. Independent TV stations and newspapers have also enthusiastically backed the military and its crackdown on the Brotherhood, which included shutting down four Islamist TV stations. Their full-throated support reflects how convinced they became over Morsi's year that the Brotherhood were fundamentally anti-democratic and intertwined with violent extremists. Independent stations thrived after Mubarak's fall, usually touting their advocacy for democratic principles. Many, including several owned by wealthy opponents of the Islamists, were deeply critical of Morsi. They raised the alarm over signs of the Brotherhood monopolizing power, infringements of press freedoms and civil liberties, violent hate speech from his hard-line allies - and over the killing of protesters by police under his administration.
But in recent days, they have been uncritical of acts by the military. After more than 50 pro-Morsi protesters were shot to death by security forces in clashes Monday, a star announcer on independent CBC TV, Lamis Hadidi - once a spokeswoman for Mubarak's 2005 re-election campaign - cautioned viewers not to think of the dead as "martyrs." Instead, she blamed the Islamists for "a new Brotherhood massacre." Egypt's media landscape has long been sharply partisan. The Brotherhood's TV station and others run by their ultraconservative Islamist allies - now off the air - were whole-heartedly in Morsi's camp. During the past weeks, the Brotherhood's party has posted pictures of children killed in Syria's civil war, presenting them as Egyptian Brotherhood dead.
Al-Jazeera TV, owned by Brotherhood ally Qatar, also was accused of strongly pro-Morsi coverage. Since protests against him began, the station has covered mass rallies in his support more extensively than those against him - the mirror image of some anti-Morsi stations' coverage. Six staffers quit accusing it of bias. "At the end of the day, as much as journalism is supposed to be about a lack of bias, the opinion journalism model has taken over the media," said Mahmoud Salem, an Egyptian writer and political analyst - and sharp critic of the Brotherhood. "Everyone wants to be a cheerleader for his or her team." Now that has turned into lashing out at the other team as well.
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It is the fourth case brought against Mursi since he was ousted by the army last year, after a year in power, following mass protests against his rule. But it also points to the growing pressure faced by the secular-minded politicians who helped to topple Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and have criticised both Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood when it was in power and the new military-backed order. The non-Islamists charged in the case include former members of parliament Amr Hamzawy and Mostafa El Naggar, as well as Alaa Abdel Fattah, an activist blogger detained since November and already facing trial on charges of protesting without permission. The charge of insulting the judiciary carries a jail term of up to three years.
Mursi has already been charged with inciting violence and conspiring with foreign militants against Egypt. Egypt's army-backed interim government has waged a determined campaign of suppression against the Brotherhood, which it has labelled a terrorist organisation. The security forces killed hundreds of its supporters in the weeks after Mursi was overthrown, and arrested thousands more. The Brotherhood, once Egypt's best-organised political and religious movement, which won five consecutive elections, denies any links to violence and accuses the army of staging a coup.
Mursi is next due in court on January 28, when he goes on trial on charges related to a mass jailbreak in 2011. The interim government is pushing ahead with a political transition plan that should lead to presidential and parliamentary elections this year, with army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seen as a likely candidate. Egyptians passed a new constitution in a referendum last week with a 98.1 percent "yes" vote, according to official results. The vote was boycotted by the Brotherhood.
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